


Wild Jasmine

by nicholas_de_vilance



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Animal Death, F/M, Feeding, Gen, Mention of Character Death, Minor Character Death, scene insert, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 09:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10828353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicholas_de_vilance/pseuds/nicholas_de_vilance
Summary: Staying dutifully riveted to an Alfred Hitchcock marathon while a vampire in the shape of a friend clawed viciously at the door down the hall, it wasn't the best idea Emily had ever had.





	Wild Jasmine

**Author's Note:**

> Hello new fandom. I don't know what this is, but here you go. I don't even ship this particular ship. I think I just needed some badass!Emily because she's kind of cool and needs love.
> 
> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. Enjoy!

Staying dutifully riveted to an Alfred Hitchcock marathon while a vampire in the shape of a friend clawed viciously at the door down the hall, it wasn't the best idea Emily had ever had. Her pale blue eyes fluttered from the screen as she turned and glanced down that hall again. Nerves wriggled along her spine, into her gut, the tips of her fingers scratching awkwardly at the soft ears of the little bunny she clutched in her lap. It was food. Tulip had rounded up a small shelter of animals she intended to feed to... Emily tore her eyes away again. She was in a house with a monster, trapped by a weird sense of duty that she didn't understand. She didn't owe anything to Tulip and Cassidy was a no-account, lazy, self-absorbed - point being, why the heck was she here? Because Cassidy was Jesse's friend. Despite that strange conversation at the dinner table last Sunday, Jesse saw something in Cassidy that no one else did and the man _cared_ about him. Emily could accept that Jesse had no interest in her. She was slowly getting used to it, letting the constant rejection slide off her shoulders now days. That last weird dialogue with him; that was what sealed it. He didn't want her, she wouldn't waste her breath anymore. However, Jesse was her friend, her preacher and if Cassidy was important to him, Emily had a chance to at least help out in some small way.

 

Still, she'd glanced in with the last guinea pig she'd tossed in. She dropped the animal inside the door and slammed it shut, waited. Then, she opened the door again and peered inside. And she would tell anyone for free that curiosity may not have _killed_ the cat, but it walked away with gray hairs at the very least. Cassidy, or the creature posing as him, was charred nearly to the bone, hair singed off, skin and bare muscle pulling over a fragile skeleton with every movement.  That pair of dingy sweat pants clinging to his hips, tied with a now burnt piece of rope, was the only thing Emily recognized as belonging to Cassidy.  She thought about Tulip’s words earlier: “you look like you freak out a lot, but don’t.”  Sound advice, even from a foul-mouth like hers.  So Emily kept the anxiety in her chest and watched Cassidy gnaw on the fuzzy carcass of a household pet.  Maybe if she got a good look, here and now, she’d see it.  Whatever intangible good Jesse seemed to draw from a dead-beat, drug-abusing vampire.  And not just the emotional kind.  A literal…actual…vampire.

 

Her heart nearly jumped clear into her throat when Cassidy’d glanced over his shoulder at her.  His face was mostly gone, eyes wide and beady, feral.  He snorted once, seemed to acknowledge that the door was open, there was only one thing in between him and setting into the night and what was sure to be a total bloodbath.  He moved no more than an inch before Emily slammed the door again and threw the lock.

 

“Wait!” came the muffled plea from inside.  “Wait, I know yeh, don’ I?”

 

She’d stepped back, somewhat appalled to hear a sound so human come from that room than stank of death and blood.  Ludicrously, she grabbed at the silver cross around her neck.  How stupid.  Cassidy had lived in a church for chrissakes.  Obviously, religious paraphernalia didn’t bother him like the stories implied.

 

“Church girl…I t’ink…”

 

Another step back.  Emily cursed herself for a coward, but she couldn’t listen to this.  It sounded like him, too much like the goofball attic boarder with the coarse sense of humor.  He was that man.  Just a handful of days ago, he’d sat across the dinner table in Jesse’s kitchen and complained non-stop about some stupid, cult-comedy film that he loathed.  Emily remembered thinking it odd that he talked so much about a movie that he didn’t even like.

 

“I t’ought…Tulip’s takin’ care o’ me.  Didna expect ta see…someone else, izz’all.”

 

His accent was so thick, Emily almost couldn’t understand him.  Despite herself, she leaned closer to catch every syllable, leave no misunderstandings.

 

“Emily, tha’s right!”  He sounded hoarse and pained, but proud of the recollection.  “The pretty organist carryin’ tha’ mighty torch fer the good padre.”  
  
“Shut up, Cassidy,” she said reflexively.

 

“Me memories’ all shot to shite,” he explained, as though she’d asked.  “Comes an’ goes, sometimes m’all here, sometimes not.”

 

Slowly, Emily had sunk to her knees before the door, about the level she felt his voice was coming from.  Against the wood, she’d heard the slow thump of something heavy tapping lightly.  “Did you…” hell, forgive her but he was talking and it beat sitting in a dark house all by herself, “did you let her lock you up in there?”

 

The tapping stopped, followed by a scrape along the hardwood.  The next time he spoke, Cassidy’s voice came from even lower, like he had sprawled himself across the floor.  “It’were my idea,” he croaked, “sort of.  Told her ta find a dark basement an’ bury me inside.  Better fer everyone, wouldna want an ‘alf-mad beast like me roamin’ these quiet streets, eh?”

 

Emily took a few deep breaths.  The thought of him outside like that, prowling shadows for anyone unlucky enough to cross his path…  She thought of that guinea pig and tried to imagine Cassidy doing the same thing to a human being, a live person.  Her chest contracted and wouldn’t let go.  _Oh crap, panic attack.  Panic attack, panic attack, crap, crap crap crapcrapcrap._   “Shit…” she hissed out, slapping a hand over her mouth.

 

It settled over the back of her neck like a chill, then down her spine.  The attack’s icy fingers spread over her ribcage, gripping her lungs tight.  She felt like she was going to suffocate.  Worse than that, she _knew_ it was going to happen.  Sweat beaded up on her brow, despite how frigid her skin felt.  She was shaking, holding an arm around her waist and trying to remember that sort of things her rational mind used to get out of these situations.  _Crap!_   She hadn’t had a panic attack since she’d lost Kevin.  It was like she’d fallen out of practice on dealing with them and now she was going to die because she couldn’t remember how to breathe.  The floor was going to open up and swallow her whole, she may as well just lay down and let it happen.  All the while, her ribs tried their damnedest to expand, pushing and pulling air through her in ragged, sobbing gasps.  She pushed herself back against the wood paneling of the hallway and slammed her own hand against her chest, convinced that her heart had stopped beating.

 

That entire time, Cassidy was back at the door, muttering at her.  “M’sorry, luv,” he’d said, “s’okay.  Never heard yeh curse like that before, shite.  Must be pretty bad out there, I- truly, I am sorry fer that.  If it’s only ‘alf the shite-show as what’s in here, well…I never did learn ta keep regular folks from steppin’ in me own shite.  But yeh’ll be fine, luv.  Guarantee it.  Tulip shoulda known better than puttin’ this on a girl like you.”

 

“Shut _up_ , Cassidy,” Emily had snapped, but she could barely take a breath so her fire was lost in the wake of her continuing anxiety.

 

“M’only tryin’ ta help,” the door replied, dismally.

 

“Well, you suck at it.”  With that, Emily had departed.  She’d picked herself up and stumbled light-headed into the bathroom looking for something to put at bay her raging migraine.  She popped three Excedrin, downed a can of beer and cuddled on the arm chair with a rabbit listening to Norman Bates talk philosophy.

 

There she sat, for three hours, watching the evening light fade into complete night, listening to the barest sounds of movement from behind her.  She was terrified, and strong enough to admit that.  Her hands still shook from the attack, digging into that poor bunny’s fur and holding on for dear life.  This wasn’t her place.  She was just a waitress and a mother and a parishioner and goddamnit, she didn’t sign on for this.  A couple hours ago she’d heard the switch he’d mentioned.  He went from being all there, humming idly some distant ditty about breasts and booze – from what Emily could make out – to tossing something hard and heavy at the door.  Emily squeezed the bunny tight and counted down from a hundred.  She counted out loud to drown out Cassidy’s mad growling.  As things often did, the noise subsided.  Cassidy went quiet for almost thirty minutes straight, during which Emily thought long and hard about her options.

 

One, she could continue on, babysit Cassidy like he was some sort of poorly behaved house pet while Tulip was off “killin’ a man in Albuquerque.”  Two, leave right now, walk out that door, go home to her kids and tell Miles that she needed him.  She’d lie for the sake of some comfort right now, be it a sin or whatever.  Three, now that was the frightening option.  The most unnerving part was that she had considered it in the first place.  Tulip had mentioned that donor blood hadn’t helped, that the animals were barely keeping him above sub-conscious instinct.  Emily had seen his lucidity, it had been brief and weak, pitiful in a way.  She was a good and honest Christian to pity her neighbor, to take his pains upon herself in this small way.  It was how she was brought up, sure, but she wasn’t stupid like people seemed to think.  She could put two and two together and make out that Cassidy didn’t need any more rodents.  He wasn’t getting any better from guinea pigs and rabbits.  He was in pain, and he didn’t complain about it.  He hadn’t asked to be let out, he hadn’t asked for anything more.  The way he was carrying on in there, Emily got the impression that he felt he deserved this small slice of hell.

 

“Please!” his voice, from down the hall.  He still sounded weak, pained, but he was loud in his desperation.  “Anyone?  Tulip?”  Maybe she’d been hasty to assume he wouldn’t start in.  Maybe he was just trying to break her down until she gave in and set him loose.  “Please, I’m so hungry.  _Please!_ ”

 

Or maybe he was starving because she hadn’t fed him.  Emily looked down at the bunny in her lap and took a deep breath to prepare herself.  _Decision time, Em,_ she coached herself, _what’s it gonna be?_

 

“Somebody please!” Cassidy shouted.

 

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Emily took out her phone.  Miles was listed under her recent calls.  Oh right, he’d called earlier.  She hardly remembered a word he’d said, but he was on the top of the list.  _Decision time, Em,_ she thought.  Sparing a single glance down the hall at the door separating that poor creature from the world, Emily hit dial and put on one of the best performances of her life.  If there was a God up there, something she hadn’t started to doubt until just recently, if He was up there he had a sick sense of humor to look down and watch her do something like this.  She made sure to impress upon Miles the dire situation and that she was in the utmost danger, to come quickly to her rescue.  He’d eat that shit up.  Once done, she put the bunny back in its cage and walked down the hall.

 

“Emily?” Cassidy whimpered, tapping at the door as she approached.  He loosed a deep, throaty grumble from his chest, but she didn’t back down this time.  “I can fuckin’ smell yeh, girl.”

 

“I’m not just some doe-eyed church-girl,” she snapped.

 

For several seconds, silence.  Then, Cassidy started tapping again, slower, more methodical.  “S’that so?”

 

“And for the record, Cassidy, you’re not just some beast neither.”

 

“I t’ink tha’s exactly what I am,” the door growled.

 

“You ain’t,” she insisted, “’cause you’re in there.  And you put yourself in there.”

 

“Doesn’t change the fact that not fer this fuckin’ door in the way, I’d rip yer pretty throat out with my teeth.”

 

Emily’s next breath got stuck, but she swallowed it down.  She was stronger than that, screw her anxiety.  “You’d regret it after,” she told him.  
  
Something slammed hard into the door, with a sharp bang like a firework going off.  The deadbolt rattled in its slot.  This time, she did back away, couldn’t help it.  Then, there was silence.  She couldn’t even hear Cassidy’s unsettling, uneven breathing on the other side.  Clearing her throat, she went on:  “Dinner’s on the way.  You could say I’m having something delivered.”

 

Cassidy muttered something, but he was too far from the door now.  The only thing Emily could make out was that the man sounded completely miserable.  Not just typical misery either.  Some guys got fed up with their shit jobs and their meaningless lives and shot their wives or themselves – or both.  Some folk passed every day in the same mind-numbing, suburban stupor, day-in, day-out and ended up bringing a gun to work or jumping off a building in the city.  Cassidy sounded miles beyond that, which was everything Emily could conceive.  She’d never known a person so deeply wounded, not just in body but mind as well.  Except, now that she’d heard it, seen it for herself, she recognized it from almost everything Cassidy ever did.  Every movement, every wisecrack and attempt to mooch funds, every shitty excuse from whatever mishap.  Jesus, even when the man laughed – which was surprisingly infrequent from someone who smiled so much.  She thought of his stupid grin and the tension in his eyes that had been unidentifiable until now.

 

“Don’t worry, Cass,” she muttered to the door, “just a little bit longer.”

 

* * *

 

People were calling it Judgement Day, and saying things like “God’s coming home to Anville.”  Emily wasn’t sure she really believed in the literal possibility of dragging God the Almighty down to their humble church.  But Jesse certainly believed enough for everyone involved.  He had Donnie convinced and Tulip.  Hell, even Cassidy seemed on board with the idea – after turning up covered in blood with little in the way of an excuse.  Everyone kept his or her head down as they cleaned up the church, solemn silence in the aftermath of the battlefield this place had been not a full week before.  The work distracted from the butterflies everyone was feeling.  Surely, it couldn’t have just been Emily’s heart pounding like a jack rabbit on steroids.  In the lull, the calm before the storm of a service this was bound to be, Emily ducked outside for a breath of fresh air.  She got a lungful of cigarette smoke.

 

“Oi, sorry luv,” Cassidy said, switching his smoke to the other hand to keep it out of her face.  “Didn’t see yeh there.”

 

“Shouldn’t you be…inside or something?”

 

Cassidy took a long drag and meanwhile shot her a questioning gaze, complete with exaggerated, quirked eyebrow.

 

“The…sun?”

 

“Oh right, that…no, I’m – and thanks fer th’concern an’ all, but I’m fine in the shade.”  He hugged his denim vest a little tighter around his front.  “Worst I get this time o’ day is a bitch of an itch.”

 

Emily nodded as though she understood.  “And Jesse, how’s he…?”  The question trailed off.  She did that a lot recently, started speaking without a clear idea on what she meant to say.  Most times, Jesse just ignored her when she did that.

“The good padre?  Oh, he’s fine too.”  Cassidy stabbed the butt of his cigarette into the step and stared at her over the rim of his sunglasses.  “Once the initial shock died down, he’s grown to accept me fer what I am.”

 

“I knew he would.  Some stupid reason, he thinks you’ve got the world on a string.”

 

“But what about _you,_ then eh?”

 

Emily looked down at him where he crouched into the shadow cast by the church’s profile.  She tried to imagine him walking into the light and bursting into flames the way Jesse had described.  Tried to genuinely consider what she might have done then.  Would she have put him out?  or let him burn?  “What about me?” she asked, uncertain that she really wanted to know.

 

“I knew I recognized that Mayor fellah from around ‘ere, jus’ didn’t click until I saw yeh this mornin’.  Ya fed him to me – let ‘im in and locked the door.  I was half outta me mind at the time, but I can recall most of the juicy bits.”

 

“Shut up, Cassidy,” she snapped.

 

“I’m a wee bit curious, was it fer my sake or to finally get the poor wanker off yer tail?”

 

Eyes narrowed, Emily wrapped an arm around her waist and then dropped it when she realized how defensive she looked.  “Would you have preferred another bunny?  You’d still be in that room.”

 

Cassidy grinned up at her, all teeth beneath those ridiculous shades.  “Admit it, Ms. Woodrow,” he teased, “Ye like me.  Just a little bit.”

 

“Stop it.”

 

The man – vampire – beast – whatever he was shifted to his feet and stood at full height.  All but the side of his head stayed in the oddly shaped shadowy area.  Emily saw steam start rise from Cass’ skin before he could correct his position.  He still had that stupid grin on his face, the one that made Emily feel a bit like he was saving her for dessert.

 

“Yeh were right, y’know,” he said, stepping just close enough to be too close.  To speak directly in her ear.  “Yer not just some doe-eyed church-girl.  Yer a sinner jus’ like the rest of us…just like me.”

 

Emily managed to stand her ground, not to cower when he was so conspicuously trying to get a rise out of her.  She kept her back straight, her expression schooled and dutifully ignored the hotness of his breath across her neck.  He felt like hellfire.  Still, she waited him out until he finally went back inside. Then, she put a hand over her neck and quivered to feel the remnants of that heat on her skin.  Glancing over her shoulder, she watched him retreat to the pulpit where Jesse was rearranging some of the adornments that had shifted with the other night’s excitement.  Damn him, but Cassidy turned back and caught her staring.  He just grinned and licked his lips. She looked away and pretended not to notice that hint of misery in the corner of his eye.


End file.
